September 19, 2011
Unfavourable weather affects Scottish farmers' wheat harvest
Scottish farmers are battling against heavy rain and strong winds in order to finish this year's wheat harvest.
The prolonged spell of bad weather is in contrast to the situation faced by English farmers who, according to this week's NFU harvest survey, have seen wheat yields just 1.5% down on the five-year average.
This was better than expected and followed predictions by the NFU back in June of a potential 14% drop in this year's wheat yield.
But the situation faced by Scottish wheat growers looked less optimistic.
Andrew Moir, NFU Scotland combinable crops chairman, said yields were not predicted to be dire, but harvesting was proving very tough.
"It is too early to forecast the overall wheat crop. Yields are looking reasonable but it is so wet and windy that it is a struggle to harvest the crop," he said.
"It is one thing after another, but we have to get it in, by hook or by crook."
Moir said the big stumbling block was the lack of a sustained period of dry weather which would enable good progress to be made in the wheat harvest.
He added, "We have seen some sun this week but the forecast for the end of the week is appalling.
"We have not had a window of opportunity in which to get the crop in and there are now concerns for other winter crops such as winter barley.
"We live with hard weather conditions in Scotland but it is getting very bad for us."
Moir's English counterpart at the NFU, Ian Backhouse, said this year's decrease was largely due to the tough spring growing conditions.
He said survey responses indicated large variability in yields, often linked to soil type and capacity to hold water, where a fortunate few benefited from showers of rain this spring.
In terms of the overall UK wheat harvest picture, HGCA-AHDB senior analyst forecast average yields would fall slightly below the five-year average.
"But it is not as bad as we were anticipating because we had pretty favourable growing conditions in June," he said.
